Left I on the News

A leftwing view of the day's news and the way it's presented in the media

Friday, January 18, 2013

More on the U.N. "death toll" in Syria

I wrote recently about the improbability of the U.N.'s claim that the Syrian death toll is 60,000. I noted that that claim would require that 96 people had been killed every single day since the conflict began. Nearly 700 people a week.

A rocket slammed into a building in Syria's northern city of Aleppo and two suicide bombers struck near a mosque in the south Friday, capping a particularly bloody week in the country's civil war with more than 800 civilians killed.

When 800 people (or should I say an alleged 800 people; these figures are no more confirmed than any others) are killed in one week, AP (correctly) describes it as a "particularly bloody week." Indeed, more than just "particularly," I don't believe there have been claims of that many people killed in any one week to date. And yet the U.N. thinks it perfectly credible that 700 people have been killed every single week for 82 straight weeks. Not bloody likely.